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In a pair of draft decisions up for consideration Wednesday, state utility regulators have so far found no immediate need for the 300 megawatt Pio Pico Energy Center, adjacent to an existing power plant in unincorporated Otay Mesa, and the smaller Quail Brush power plant, opposite state Route 52 from Mission Trails Regional Park.

Those recommendations have set off a high-stakes lobbying offensive at the San Francisco-based California Public Utilities Commission, which has the final say on whether the generators are a worthwhile investment for utility customers in San Diego and southern Orange counties.

Plant developers -- along with the projects' allies in the utilities industry and government -- have seized on the prolonged shutdown of two reactors at San Onofre as new evidence of a pressing need for the plants.

Environmentalists and consumer advocates worry the nuclear outage will unravel efforts to show how energy efficiency and other utility-run conservation programs -- paid for by customers -- are making a difference. A new fleet of quick-start generators in San Diego, they say, is not currently necessary.

San Onofre provided for about 20 percent of San Diego's electricity before shutting down indefinitely in January 2012 because of the rapid deterioration of recently replaced steam generators. The grid has endured a year without significant failures or close calls, but utility regulators are being warned privately of a looming threat.

San Diego Gas & Electric executives traveled in person this month to urge the lead commissioner in the case, Mark Ferron, to reconsider.

"It is uncertain what will happen with the (San Onofre) units and it would be valuable to have an insurance policy on hand because of this uncertainty," SDG&E President Michael Niggli explained, according to SDG&E's written account of the meeting.

Those lining up against the plants include the utility commission’s own Division of Ratepayer Advocates, Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, an alliance of six California environmental justice groups and, most recently, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner.

Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Action Network, is petitioning Gov. Jerry Brown to ensure decisions related to San Onofre are not made in haste.

"There is no danger that the lights will go out if the utilities commission rejects ... the Pio Pico and Quail Brush plants," he wrote . "The danger is that consumers will be required to pay for an expensive gas-fired plant they don’t need now or in the future."

Private equity funds already have dedicated tens-of-millions of dollars to developing the projects, and are warning that capital markets and merchant power developers could punish California.

Rejection "could lead to capital flight and inevitably questions about the integrity of (grid) reliability in the region, and ultimately leads to significantly higher rates for consumers," a partner of Energy Investor Funds, the owner of the Pio Pico, told the president of the state utilities commission.